“Read you so much in my face?”
And John de Witt caught the other by the arm and walked with him across the chamber. For awhile he did not speak for there had fallen on him a bitter sense of chilly fear; it seemed that the music had stopped and the candles gone out.
He shuddered.
“The Prince,” he said. “Did you mark him … and the Frenchwoman?” his fingers tightened on M. de Montbas’ arm. “My Republic.… God help me!… God help me, Count! … for I am afraid.…”
PART II
THE PRINCE
“I challenge all our histories to produce a Prince in all respects his equal; I call the differing humours, interests and religions of the world to witness whether they ever found a man to centre in, like him.…
“He might have raised his seat upon his native country’s liberty, his very enemies would have supported him in those pretences; but he affected no honours but what were freely offered him, there or elsewhere.…